Play the Moment will be performing as part of the Vancouver Maker Faire June 1-2 at the PNE.

This is a rare opportunity to experience a network music performance with a live band member in attendance.

I will be playing computer and singing on-site and I will be available to answer questions about our show and my other projects.

In addition to the confirmed Play the Moment performance, I am working on also presenting Angels Among Us, an interactive installation featuring my collaboration with visual artist Joanna Gabler as Zest Continuum.

The portion that I am involved in is the new experimental works, Testing 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2 . Play the Moment – Shakti meets for a networked internet performance on the Waterwheel Tap.

I am working with Play the Moment – Shakti, a group of four women located in different cities. This pioneering effort in experimental media arts includes Victoria Gibson (Vancouver, Canada), Jude Abrams (Toronto) and Sonia Paço-Rocchia (Montreal) creating music with Christina deRoos (Detroit, USA) manipulating the visuals.

We will be performing a piece called ‘excavating desire/fouilles pour le désire‘

Flowering of Passion – acceptance and expression of our own inner identity

Four women going through the same risk and hardship of “Excavating Desire”.

Desires are often hidden underneath layers so we do not even recognize them ourselves. It is a risk to reveal our true self, particularly in personal and intimate situations, but also when revealing oneself as an artist. “Excavating Desire” provides a structure to peel away the layers of constraint and grant ourselves permission to express what we choose to see and hear as art.

Schedule and time zones

For example the second performance of our show is at 7:30am on Thursday, December 13th DST in New Zealand — the location of the 121212 festival, but it is Wednesday, December 12th at 10:30am PST, in Vancouver, Canada, where I live.

More information about the show can be foun by clicking the title of the show.

My problem with crowdsourcing of funds must be shared by many artists who do not have a mailing list of fans to call on — all of my friends are also artists with limited incomes. The idea of continuously begging for money from those who I know are struggling to produce their own work is not appealing.

A recent e-mail from Indiegogo giving advice to those attempting to raise funds in this way read in part:

Reach out to your closest friends and family to ask for their support. Aim to raise 25% of funds from this inner circle. This will help your campaign reach a tipping point.

I know that this will not occur, but I do plan to make a new video with a direct request for funds rather than just an example of the work. I have to be more direct with why I need the funds. In the next paragraph the encouraging letter explains:

It takes 7 contacts with someone before they will take action. Don’t be afraid to keep reaching out to your community to ask for their support.

I have worked in marketing and I hold a certificate from SFU in Social Media Marketing — this is not always true. If your cause really strikes a chord, the donor will give right away. If you are not hitting those notes, change your tactics before you try again. You risk alienating your contacts if you continuously present the same message in the same way. How many of you have shared a clever ad? The idea is to create a message that is effective and get it to people who can act on the message.

Now, I am looking to larger internet communities than my humble group of facebook friends. I have contacted Technorati and now I have pasted this code: ZBCU5MH7UZ6H into my blog, they will accept that I am the author and add it to their list of verified blogs.

I will add more ideas here as the days progress, but I really have to work on the show and make a living too. In some ways, if I had paying work it would be easier to pay for the trip myself, which is what I have been doing so far. However, since I want to be available to travel to present my work, and to have more time to create new pieces, the free-lance jobs I get keep me at subsistence level or below.

If you can, please visit my Indiegogo site to donate here and send Bandwdith: Interactive Installation to Staten Island on June 23rd for the Lumen Festival.

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#nopipelines #oilspill #courageGrandmother, Retired Teacher Jailed Up to Six Months for Protecting Her Land

Ellen Sue Gerhart, 63, has been a key leader in the multi-year campaign against Energy Transfer Partners’ Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids pipeline, which is being built through her property.

[Huntingdon, PA] On Friday, August 3, Huntingdon County Judge George Zanic sentenced 63-year-old grandmother, retired teacher, and landowner Ellen Sue Gerhart to two to six months in jail and a $2,000 fine for indirect criminal contempt of court.

Judge Zanic’s decision was based on accusations from lawyers for Texas-based oil and gas giant Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the developer of the pipeline project through Gerhart’s land. The company alleged that Gerhart had baited a bear onto the pipeline easement on her wooded 27-acre property.

Elise Gerhart, daughter of Ellen, said, “If you build a pipeline through the woods, you should expect to see bears and other wildlife. Judge Zanic gave this $50 billion company the power of eminent domain over my family’s property and our governor gave them the permits. My mom’s protest on her own property is not the injustice here.”

In an interview prior to her arrest, Ellen Gerhart said, “We’ve had no choice but to take a stand and defend what our government officials are unwilling to protect. Our right to peacefully object to an unjust and dangerous pipeline should be protected over the profit margin of these foreign corporations.”

Rich Raiders, attorney for the Gerhart family, said “The eminent domain condemnation case filed by Sunoco against the Gerharts remains ongoing. The Gerharts have also appealed Sunoco’s environmental permits granted by the Department of Environmental Protection concerning the wetlands permits issued to Sunoco on this project. The trial before the Environmental Hearing Board is scheduled for August 29th.

Raiders continued, “Their are still charges of harassment and unlawful taking alleged against Mrs. Gerhart pending. Mrs. Gerhart believes that these charges are a distraction from Sunoco’s ongoing litany of permit suspensions, failed horizontal directional drilling, and various project delays. We believe that the company did not present evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Mrs. Gerhart’s protests were criminal. Mrs. Gerhart disagrees with Judge Zanic’s decision today and is reviewing her options and will pursue her rights to the fullest extent.”

Ellen Gerhart is an outspoken advocate, not only to protect her own land but also to protect the hundreds of waterways impacted across Pennsylvania by ETP’s Mariner East 2 pipeline project. The Gerharts have never given ETP permission to build through their family land.

Since construction began, ETP has reported an astounding 111 spills and has been issued over 65 violations by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. On May 23, ETP spilled 4,000 gallons of drilling fluid on the Gerhart property, threatening the family’s well water.

Ellen and her family’s ongoing opposition to the project has led to significant intimidation and harassment on the part of ETP, their private security contractor TigerSwan, and local authorities. The Gerharts are involved in numerous cases against state agencies and ETP over use of eminent domain, deficient environmental permits, and violations of federal civil rights laws.

"The World Geological Society finally settled on the end of World War II as the onset of the Anthropocene—sharp escalation and destruction of the environment, not only global warming, carbon dioxide, other greenhouse gases, but also such things as plastics in the ocean, which are predicted to be greater than the weight of fish in the ocean not far in the future.
Humans beings, right now, this generation, for the first time in history, have to ask, “Will human life survive?”

Time to end the Anthropocene era and move to an era when humans care about each other and the Earth enough to stop "having severe and deleterious effects on the environment in which human and other life can survive."